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Movie review: Locke features stunning turn from Tom Hardy

Stephen Knight directs original and riveting film

Tom Hardy gives a tour de force performance in Locke, a highly original and riveting film.

Photograph by: A24 Films
, Postmedia News

Locke

By all measures, Stephen Knight’s Locke should be the embodiment of anti-cinema.

An 85-minute feature filmed entirely inside a moving car with a single actor, Locke doesn’t even include a high-speed chase, a spectacular crash or any slow-motion shots of carnage.

We’re just watching Tom Hardy play Ivan Locke, a man in the midst of a significant life change.

Without unveiling too many of the particular challenges flooding the life of Ivan Locke, suffice to say Ivan is an accessible character. A family man with two sons, a wife and a passion for his work as a concrete foreman, Ivan appears to be as solid as any one of his cement foundations. We get the feeling that most of his life has been predictable, controlled and emotionally regulated to ensure stability.

But after we spend five minutes riding shotgun, cracks start to appear and Locke tells us “he’s not feeling himself.” His emotional load is shifting, and for the next hour, we’re documenting the seismic jiggle as Ivan Locke recalculates his entire life path.

Because Tom Hardy (Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises) is easily one of the best actors of our lifetime, this seemingly non-cinematic, and undeniably static, voyage gains emotional momentum with every passing minute.

Hardy makes us care about the mystery of his character, which in turn, clicks the ignition of suspense.

Knight uses every tool at his disposal — from the threat of traffic to dozing off at the wheel — to keep the tension cranked high, but it’s the narrative side of the movie that makes Locke such a treat because like the design of the film itself, it’s almost anti-dramatic.

Unlike standard screen heroes who chew up screen time and sympathy, dodging the consequences of their actions until a crisis of conscience pushes them to do the right thing, Ivan Locke made his decision before he even started the car.

The rest of the journey is spent watching him atone, and live with the man he’s become.

Such an internal voyage presents a challenge at the best of times, but behind the wheel of a car in the dark, presents even bigger challenges for a filmmaker because we’re not given a chance to see our character in relation to others, or even in relation to the landscape.

The whole movie is self-contained — just like the character of Locke — which gives Knight two parallel blackboards to work with as he forces his main character to grapple with his own past, his chaotic present and the shape of the future in the time it takes to make the nightly commute.

For the viewer, every new piece of the puzzle becomes a pleasure to ponder because Hardy gives every fragment so much feeling. Even more appealing, is his character’s unflagging commitment to honesty.

We rarely see adults behave like grown-ups anymore. Hollywood has reduced our problem-solving capacity to extended gunplay. People don’t talk. They shoot. And while fans of Quentin Tarantino may feel pleasure with each pull of the trigger, violence without feeling is dull.

Feelings give violence shape, so even if there isn’t a single weapon, gunshot or bloody wound in Locke, we still feel bruised and battered by the finale because Knight shows us one man brave enough to stand in the middle of life’s highway as the semi-trailer called consequence catches him in the headlights.

Will he be flattened? Will he jump out of the way at the last minute? Or will he relax and allow his body to be launched into a whole new world by the impact?

Locke is simply too good to give away, so get yourself behind the wheel and open your mind to the power, and the untapped cinematic potential, of driving responsibly.

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